Home

In March 2011 we went ‘Round the World’

Everyone should go round the world! We were too busy to do this while we were still working full-time on Current Archaeology, but once our son Robert had taken over, we felt we should do our special trip. We found that we would have to do it in 31 days, to cover our travel insurance, but we gained a day by doing it the right way round – we spent 32 days on our journey, but arrived back 31 days after we had left!

The best way to go round the world is to fly, and we found the major airlines are linked into three major groupings. We chose the One World alliance, formed around BA, which includes Quantas in Australia and the all important Chilean airline LAN, which is the only airline that flies to Easter Island, which I longed to visit. We arranged our trip through an agent, Trailfinders, though we arranged most of the hotel accommodation ourselves.

The big thing I wanted to do was Easter Island, and there is only one way to do this, going via Tahiti, as there is a once a week flight from Tahiti to Easter island from whence we could then fly to Santiago in Chile. We did this and it was a triumphant success.

In these webpages I look back at some of our memories. The pages on Hong Kong and Sydney are bit short but those on New Zealand and Tahiti and particularly Easter island are fairly full – indeed the Easter Island pages have grown into a separate site at www.Easter-island.org.uk .

Our trip begins with our visit to Hong Kong, then to Australia, first Sydney, then Melbourne, then to New Zealand, to our cousins in Auckland, and then to the South Island and visiting some of the ‘Gold Rush’ towns. Then we flew on to Tahiti, and spent several days in the resort of Moorea; then on to Easter island – there is a once-a-week flight from Tahiti to Easter Island – and we give a fairly long report on the wonderful statues to be found on the island. And then we flew to Santiago in Chile, and then back via Madrid to London. It was a wonderful trip.

Note: Most of the pictures can be made bigger: just click on them!If you click a second time, they will become bigger still. Use the back button to return.